Anyone else try to replace hd with cf?

[sduck409]

With one of these from ebay - CF to ipod IDE Adaptor, work as 1.8" toshiba Hard Drive - http://cgi.ebay.com/CF-to-ipod-IDE-A...QQcmdZViewItem

I got one to experiment with. I have an old ihp140 as my main device, but recently bought a h320 for hacking.

I've been watching the geektechnique page on his ipod to cf converter, and been waiting for it to get produced, but it's taking forever. I'm sure it'll work great when and if it gets produced, and I'll buy one from him, but in the meantime he got beat by some asian outfit, and the link above is where I got mine.

Did a quick swap this evening - all I had handy was a 15mb cf card - I've got a 64mb one, but I think it's in my daughter's camera. The adaptor looks like it should work, and fits very nicely. One thing to be aware of - it's a 50 pin adaptor, for a 44 pin ide interface, so you have to skip the first 3 pairs of holes when inserting the jack - not really a problem, it's marked well. So physically at least it works. However I couldn't get it to work beyond that - first I got a check hdd connection error, and then that went away, and it said check hdd, and then that went away, and then things looked pretty normal, except it couldn't format the drive, and said there was 0 space on it. So something's not working right. I suspect I need to preformat the thing in my card reader using a pc - my mac only does dos fat16, and I think it's version might not be right. Or perhaps something else is the matter, I haven't had enough time to experiment.

Anyway, just curious if anyone else out there is interested in this sort of stuff.

[shadesbass]

Haven't tried it myself, but I can't see why it shouldn't work. You will need to format it to FAT32 though.
Also make sure there's adequate padding to ensure it doesn't move about and accidentally disconnect or break the pins.

[sduck409]

After quite a bit of experimentation, I can pretty safely report that these asian adaptor cards DO NOT work. Or at least the one I have doesn't. I've tried everything, but the original HD still works fine, and the cf card in this adaptor doesn't. So I guess I'm still waiting for the one from the geektechnique site.

[jumbuck]

Thats a bugger . I've been following this will great interest.
So now for some uneducated guesses and suggestions from Jumbuck....

I wonder if the adapter card is faulty? Do you have a 1.8 external enclosure to test it with ? Or if the iriver requires a minimum amount of size before it detects it?

[sduck409]

That's what I don't have for an definitive answer - another 1.8in device to test it in. All I can tell you is that when I put the old hd back in after and during various tries, it always worked.

[jumbuck]

There's link (which you probably have already seen ) on the ebay web page you purchased the adapter from with directions for getting it working in a ipod http://www.maxorigin.com/A-Ric/ipod_cf/IPOD_CF.htm , in this tutorial they say it needs to be formatted and also that they tested with a 1 gig and 2 gig cards. I take it you tried formatting it with the iriver firmware as well as windows explorer? I wonder if a program such as swissknife would do the trick? *scratches head*

[sduck409]

Yea, I saw that. I'm going to try some more stuff with a different cf card - it's quite possible the one I've using isn't compatible for whatever reason - it's really old. Yea, I tried formatting it with my mac (fat16), windows explorer (fat32 I think), and the iriver firmware. I'll give that swissknife thing a try also.

[cricri_pingouin]

Good to know sduck409, thanks for the info. I was remotely considering solid state storage on my h140 myself.